Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen said Thursday that the satellite-TV company is “all in” with its proposal to acquire Sprint Nextel for $25.5 billion in cash and stock, a merger he thinks could gain regulatory approval within six months.

A speedy review from the Federal Communications Commission is key because the combined company would be playing catch-up to the nation’s dominant mobile phone service providers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Japanese telecom giant SoftBank, which has a competing deal to acquire 70 percent of Sprint for $20 billion, suggested this week that a Dish-Sprint merger could take until mid-2014 to finalize, a delay that would devalue Dish’s offer.

“We just went through two years of regulatory (reviews),” Ergen said, referencing the process the company went through to acquire its war chest of wireless spectrum. “The FCC is very familiar with us. They’re very familiar with Sprint. It may take six months. It won’t take a year.”

His remarks came after Dish held its annual shareholders meeting Thursday in Douglas County. While Dish didn’t address the Sprint deal during official business, the question-and-answer portion provided Ergen with a platform to respond to a series of jabs from SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son.

“It’s what Apple did with music. Suddenly your music was in the cloud, and once it was in the cloud, it was in all of your devices,” Ergen said. “You’ve got to do the same thing with video. Dish-Sprint can do that.”

He said industry consolidation will continue, leaving three wireless players in the long term, and Dish is “going to be one of those three.”

SoftBank has said it doesn’t plan to increase its bid for Sprint. Ergen doesn’t believe it, but adds that SoftBank won’t have to up its offer until after Sprint’s special committee responds to Dish.

“It’s a bidding war,” Ergen said. “I’m not saying one way or the other (whether Dish will increase its offer). I believe they will raise their bid.”

Ergen acknowledges that Sprint’s special committee will probably “pay special attention” to the combined company’s debt, which would approach $50 billion. He said the new entity’s cash flow would allow it to “de-lever quickly.”

Asked whether a partnership — similar to Verizon’s cross-selling deal with cable companies — could be another way for Dish to enter the mobile broadband business, Ergen said such agreements are tough to pull off.

“The problem with partnerships is: How do you divvy up the pie?” Ergen said. “Even Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin broke up.”

Asked Tuesday about SoftBank’s grand strategy for Sprint, Son likened himself to the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, saying, “The good fighter never talks about the next strategy in public.”

“I deliver the results instead of big-mouthing (about) the future,” Son said.

Ergen poked fun at Son’s “secret plan.”

“He has a secret plan, but he’s not going to tell you. Steve Jobs would never tell you, so he’s not going to tell you what his secret plan is. Richard Nixon had a secret plan to win the Vietnam War — it was called surrendering,” Ergen said. “Anytime you’ve got a secret plan, I’m a little skeptical. I don’t have a secret plan. I’ve said exactly what we’re going to do.”

Ergen’s openness on strategy could help.

Industry consultant Tim Farrar said in a report this week that “decisions by Sprint shareholders may be based on perceptions of how important control of video content will be,” he said. “That may favor Ergen, but in our view, it will still be difficult for Dish to outbid SoftBank.”

Farrar gives SoftBank a 65 percent shot at winning the Sprint prize, although he notes that the “situation remains very fluid.”

What happens if Sprint goes with SoftBank?

“Our spectrum today would be available to Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile,” Ergen said. “It could end up being a partnership, it could end up being a sale of Dish or it could be that we acquire AT&T. … We might be a couple hundred billion short for AT&T.”

Ergen, though, clearly doesn’t plan on losing.

“If you want to win, you better be all in,” Ergen said. “This company is all in.”

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